January 8, 2025 Regular School Board Meeting

001want to make sure that to the extent that that's a genuine interest for the board that that we make sure we get um folks trained up on Robert's roles and exposure to these things. >> Yeah, I mean I just two cents from me. I mean, I think this board worked really, really well together last year. Um, being a parent prior to being on the board, uh, and being on the other side of the meetings, I mean, I honestly, and it has nothing to do with me being part of these meetings either. I think it was just run really well and we just functioned really well together. So, just wanted to add my two cents to that. I think it was a great year last year. >> Any other discussion? >> All right. All those in

002favor, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? Chair votes eye. We are on to the approval of a vice chairperson. >> I nominate Mr. Key to be vice chair. >> Second. >> Have a nomination in a second for Mr. Key to be the vice chair. Any discussion? >> Would you accept? >> Yes. >> All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. Um, the approval of the clerk and that would be Miss Kryer. >> Still good to go. All right. I need a motion to approve Miss Kryer to be the the clerk. >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion, a second for Miss Kryer to continue being the clerk. She does a fantastic job and um doesn't often get the the praise that she deserves. Um,

003is there any any more discussion? Thanks for keeping us organized. >> Yeah, printing printing these books for me. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. >> Um, how about the deputy clerk? >> Who I'm trying to remember who is the deputy clerk right now. That's right. That's right. That's right. >> All right. I need a motion to approve the deputy clerk who is currently Dr. Gretz. I move that we appoint Dr. Gretz to be the deputy clerk. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor of Dr. Gretz being the deputy clerk, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. All right. Approval of the superintendent designate. >> That's right. I think it's >> we have two for the school division. We have myself and

004Dr. Strickland. >> Yeah. >> Then for under the designate currently for governor school and for project return. >> Okay. So how about we make a motion that uh Dr. Mr. Stribbling and Miss Grasser both be appointed as the superintendent's design related to division matters and that Miss Grasser be appointed to be the superintendent design related to governor school and project return. >> Does that sound reasonable? And >> Yeah, absolutely. >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second to approve Mr. Mr. Shribling and Miss Grasser as the superintendent designate and Miss Grasser to project return and Esser. Correct. >> And governor. >> Governor's school. That's right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. All right. approval of the date and time of

005our regular schoolboard meetings and the time for close session. Right now we do the second Wednesday of every month which would be today January 8th, February 12th, March 12th, April 9th, May 14th, June 11th, July 9th, August 13th, September 10th, October 8th, November 12th, and December 10th. Those would be the regular meetings. Currently, we have them at 18 6, excuse me, 6:30. And close session typically starts at 5:30. Sometimes we start early if we have a large agenda. Um, do you all want to change that or >> second Wednesday's done? >> Okay. May I have a motion to approve the date and time for both regular schoolboard meetings and the close session. >> I'll make a motion um for the regular school board meetings to be the second Wednesday of the month. Open well close

006at 5:30, open at 6:30. >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second for the schoolboard meetings to be continue being on the second Wednesday of every month with close session starting at 5:30 and open session reconvening at 6:30. Any discussion? Yeah, I'll just know that we we have from time to time run into conflicts related to budget hearings uh with the board of supervisors. Not all of us believe that we should be advocating and attending for those, but um so I can't tell based on our packet right now to what extent we have any of them overlapping. And so I wonder if we can't ask the staff to put together any of the meetings that we think might be a conflict so those can be handled as quickly as possible and

007be said as needed. Uh otherwise I clearly don't have any issue with um Mark Kent. It's just making sure that if there's a board of supervisors meeting in which the budget is being discussed and unfortunately the budget is a zero some game that they're talking about funding other divisions that's relevant to the schools then I would like to be able to attend those and I think we should be able to kind of slide in. I don't think I have enough on to confidently say whether or not there's conflict in the moment. Um so uh to the extent is it can I I see a couple heads that can ask the staff that um look into that and make sure that we're not having any conflicts with consumers and other budgeters. I have in my hand

008this price thinking >> I I just can't tell because it's narrow to like the school division. I can't really tell yet if there's conflict for other sessions. I'll do a little leg work on my end too. >> Can we do this? Can we obviously we have support for this now and then um discuss it between now and February and if there's something we need to move >> okay reasonable I just I figure the earlier I get ahead of this the easier it is for us to like recognize when when we may want to be in two places at once. >> All right. Any more discussion? All those in favor please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. All right. Before we move on, I talked to a couple of you all and some

009of you mentioned or all of the ones that I talked to mentioned that they wanted to keep um the delegates the same. Is there anybody that doesn't want to keep the delegates the same? The reason I say that is if we're going to keep them the same, we could probably just have one motion to would be G through G through O. It would save a lot of time. confirm what I'm seeing on actually in the back of our books there's issues related to schoolboard member comments and it has committee listings if I read these aloud can people confirm if just seems right to them for what what you currently responsible for >> so uh Mr. Reed wellness and blue governor school Mr. Ranhouse CIP and sped >> Mr. P edech. Um, I currently, this seems

010like it's a one page, right? So, I have CTE, VSBA delegates, Blue Ridge delegates, uh, gifted and prep. I'm happy to mix that up if others want more committee assignments or different committee. See, >> yeah, chopping. >> Is everybody good with what with what we have? I would I would entertain a motion to support G through O as it as we currently have it. If if anybody wants to do that. If not, we'll go through them one at a time. I was just trying to >> I will move >> that we appoint for G. Uh I do not have an alternate for VSBA. Is there a is anybody willing to serve as alternate to be as >> Andre was your alternate? >> Well, I was >> It's just not on the page. >> Okay. >>

011That's why that's why I'm asking. >> Yeah. So, >> that's why >> Why don't you work with me for 30 seconds? I can get this out. For Jean, I move that we appoint Kelly to the voting delegate and E to the alternate for VSBA for each Kelly to prep and Can I get an alternate? >> I think I have an alternate for that one. Mr. Reed for as the alternate for Blue Ridge Governor School. Do you want to be delegate or alternate? Mr. Reed, >> I would love to be al wait for Blige Governor School. I'll do the delegate for that one. >> Uh Mr. Reid as delegate. Kelly is alternate for Blige Governor School for Special Education. Uh Mr. Renhouse for career and technical education, Kelly for the wellness committee, Mr. Reed for capital

012improvement, Mr. Renhouse for the gifted advisory, uh Kelly, and for EdTech, Mr. Key, Mrs. Cer, you have all that. All right, I have a motion for delegates and alternates for G through O. Is there a second? Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor of supporting the delegates and their alternates for items G through O, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. Now we're on to the last item. Um E, the FA County Public School Board approval of the code of conduct for school board member which I have here. Anybody would like to see I think everybody should have a copy of this in their packet. >> Should be a copy. >> There you go. I remember for years this was something that went unsigned and that we made edits

013to it to try to personalize it virtually. I'm not confident that it ever received five signatures even in the the past couple years. Maybe I'm wrong, but >> you're wrong. >> It has. I just my point is I want to make sure that it if it needs to be edited to get five signatures that we figure out what type of edit is. >> When it was the VSBA code of conduct, it didn't receive very many signatures, but when it was the Fluenta County School Board code of conduct, it did. Um, do we have the hard copy that we need to sign? >> Okay. >> All right. Is there a motion to approve this code of conduct? And I don't think it's it's not required. So you can we can approve it. So >> we can

014All right. I have a motion. >> I'll second. >> And a second to approve the code of conduct. Any discussion? >> All right. We have a motion, a second to approve the code of conduct for our schoolboard members. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Votes I. And we have the hard copy back here that we'll get signed before we leave the meeting tonight. All right. Thank you all for bearing with me as we completed all that. We are moving on to the certification of close session. Yes, >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. Band. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. >> All right. Dr. Gretch, any actions coming out of close session? >> Yes, Mr. Chair. I recommend that the board approving discipline cases 1 A,

0151 B, and 1 C as presented during close session. >> 1 A, 1 B, and 1 C. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Do I have a motion to approve student cases 1 A, 1 B, and 1 C? >> I'll second. >> All right. We have a motion, a second. There's no discussion. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Any opposed? Chair votes up. All right. Now we're on to the adoption of tonight's agenda. Are there any changes anybody would like to make to the agenda or would you like to adopt it as it is? >> I mean we adopt the agenda as a second. We >> have a motion and a second to adopt adopt tonight's agenda as it's written. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor in

016adopting tonight's agenda, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. On to the consent agenda. Excuse me. Does anybody need to pull anything from the cons consent agenda and talk about it individually? Anything at all? All right. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make a motion we approve consent agenda as presented. >> I'll second. >> All right. >> I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Any discussion? >> The December 11 meeting. You're not attending. Did you come in, Mr. >> Um December 11th? No, I'm looking at December 4th. Give me a second. No, sir. December 4th? Yes. December 11th? No. >> Right. So, December, >> let's let's vote on 7 A separately, then 7B and 7 C. Does that sound good? >> So,

017Mr. asked, "Would you entertain a friendly amendment such that your uh motion is to approve 7B and C?" >> Sure. >> All right. So, >> friendly amendment second. >> I seconded that. >> Whoever it is. >> All right. So, um all those in favor of of approving consent agenda items B and C, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. All right. 7A. Approval of the minutes. Um, all those in favor of approving the minutes for both December 4th and December 11th, I'm going to abstain because I was not here on December 11th. Um, please say I. >> I think we need a Sorry. Why don't we u I'll make a motion to approve 7A to make to make it cleaner. >> Okay. >> Because there's no motion. >> Go for it.

018>> I move that we approve 7A. >> Thanks. >> All right. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving 7A, please say I. I. >> Any opposed? And I abstain. >> All right. We don't have our student liaison. have anything that we want to discuss about that? >> Nothing intently. She's just not will be here obviously because of the roads and >> it's unfortunate we have in February. >> All right, we are moving on to public comments. We are at our first round of public comments for tonight's meeting. Any Fanta County citizen or employee of the Fuana County public school system may speak and the expectations are that you address the board, not individual members. You provide your name and voting district, that you do not exceed three minutes. The time will be on the

019televisions, and that you're respectful. The board will not interact with you during public comment, but you're welcome to ask us questions following the meeting, and there will be a second opportunity at the end of this meeting. I don't know if there's anybody on the signup sheet, but you all are welcome to step forward and provide your public comment. >> Hello, my name is Ashley Cochran. I live in the 14th district. Let me start by saying again how deeply embarrassing and shameful it is that county has become a place where we ban books. This decision has put us on the wrong side of history and is a betrayal of the values of intellectual freedom and education. We owe it to our students and to our reputation as a community to do better. With that in mind,

020I'd like to propose changes to the book review process that ensure fairness, transparency, and respect for diverse progressive perspectives while also protecting access to vital literature. First and foremost, there should be an appeals process for books that are removed. The idea that a single decision made by a flaw and non-representative committee can permanently burn take a book off the shelves is unacceptable. Community members deserve a voice in these decisions and an appeals process ensures accountability. I suggest a system where if enough signatures are gathered, a book is restored to the library. This strikes a balance between respecting the committee's work and safeguarding against harmful and unilateral decisions. Beyond that, we need to limit the number of books any one person can request for review in a year. I suggest a cap of three. This prevents

021the process from becoming dominated by individuals with extreme agendas and allows the committee to focus on legitimate concerns. Next, you must require complainants to read the books they are challenging. Yes, in full. This isn't harsh. It's common sense. If someone wants to ban a book, they should at least demonstrate a basic understanding of its content. perhaps through a written summary or comprehension quiz. Transparency is also critical. The committee's meeting should be live streamed, held in accessible venues, and open participation via Zoom. This is a matter of public interest, and the public deserves to be fully engaged in the process. The committee decision should also be conducted entirely in public so that they can follow and participate meaningfully. And most importantly, the committee itself must reflect the diversity of our schools and county. Our students are

022not all white, not all women, not all straight, and not all Christian. A committee composed entirely of white women is unacceptable and signals a serious problem. Finally, a clear voting procedure must be established. Each comm every committee member's vote on whether to remove a vote should be on record, ensuring accountability for these consequential decisions. These changes are not just practical, they're essential. Let's take this opportunity to course correct and ensure we have a system that protects intellectual freedom, reflects our community's diversity, and gives everyone a fair voice. Let me end by saying this. Banning books is fundamentally wrong. It goes against everything we claim to value about freedom in education. But if this county insists on having a book banning committee at all, at least we can do is ensure that it operates transparently, effectively,

023and fairly. If we're going to do something so egregious, we better at least get the process right. Thank you. >> All right. Anyone else? >> Good evening. Thank you all for being here. Uh the one thing I'd like to bring up going into the new school year is it seems like there's really only a couple of board members who really actively participate and there's a few of you who really just sit up here and run head. One of the things is you have to understand there's a lot of people on the outside looking in. If you have other obligations in the school board or in the school division, we don't know we unless you voice it or talk about it. The other thing is I think a couple of you are athletic coaches and I

024hope you're not bringing the same enthusiasm to whatever whatever you coach as you are here because it's it's it's not enough. I believe there needs to be more dialogue amongst you all. There there's a couple who really voice their opinions. I don't have to agree with everybody. People that come here don't have to agree with you but more dialogue be better for our students. The other thing is can't remember the gentleman's name that speaks about the Arams Academy, but I believe that school map is up on board docs. It'd be appreciated if that could be taken down. Additionally, I'm sure it has to be distributed to the public uh for approval, etc., etc. It'd be nice if that could be done in a control manner. I don't really need to know how to get around

025the school and nobody else does that. So, that'd be great if you guys could take care of it. Thank you, >> Mr. check. >> Can you ask for a name in our voting district, please? >> Yeah, Robert Union and Robert. Thank you so much. >> All right. Anyone else wishing to speak? All right, we will close the first round of public comment. Move on to reports from Mr. Gretz. >> Thank you, board members. Uh, we have a lot of information to go over tonight. So I'll probably unless you have specific things I'll be scoring in the report section um and defer to what happens a little bit there do have some opportunities for you to engage for anyone to engage in their schools that you can see in there uh coming up there's quite a

026bit going on obviously in the operations and maintenance obviously those things come through this processing but we're working on the contract contracts working in all of those things. I've listed those if you'd like to hear about what isn't in the report because it's happened since the report was done. Just to make this a matter of public records that the school board did approve and as part of this request for turnback months and the county supervisors also approved causing work to be done included enrollment projections and facility capacity studies. We have based on your authorization authorizing me to authorize executing the contract with cooperative strategies to do the enrollment part of that overall project. The reason we wanted to do that as quickly as possible is a little over $6,000 is so we could potentially get

027some of that data during this current budget process and and it could influence the current decision. So that's not that I also put a a finance that the the calculations that we always wait for breath had not been provided. We did get that yesterday at 10 a.m. So we'll reference that when we get 25. [Music] So we can speak now there's a lot of there's a lot of political work analytical work that we do not have any but uh we can speak to the governor's proposed budget and we can speak to how some of those calculations look like they're filter out but I do want to give the caveat that it's brand new information so what questions do you have with me anything there's another that just received today on radars that there's a CTE

028information that's going to be happening at our high school. Dr. Sh, you said that to me. Do you remember when that 5 to 7? >> February 12th at the uh high school cafe. that that's a great opportunity for people to see the amazing career and technical opportunities that we have right here in our high school. Many people aren't here. I >> think I've been four out of six years and I love that evening. Yeah. Like >> you get so many families with kids who are about to about to start the high school or about to level up the next grade and want to see the programs that we have. each and every department is out there flexing, showing what they do, showing how they're preparing kids for the what comes after high school. It is

029a fabulous event and really showcases what our CTE programs have. So, um I enjoy walking around and doing it and uh hope to be there if I'm above grounded in the county. I will be US. Great. >> Thank you. That that's all I have unless there are questions. >> Any questions from the board? All right, let's talk about the 2526 academic school calendar draft. Miss Sorz, >> as Miss Sores is making her way to the front and just about everything she touches, the people that are experienced her work to say that is that she is extraordinary. >> Can we remind all the parents, please pay attention to this now because once we approve it >> because typically we'll get into halfway through the year and then get the complaints, you know. took office. >> That's

030right. Please look at it. Now, >> we we did reinstate the calendar committee this year. So, it's been several years uh since we've had that. So, we had a staff calendar committee all welcome to attend. And then we did um same as last year, we sent out staff um surveys as well as family surveys so that we could get feedback. and then that calendar committee in addition to uh building a draft uh reviewed and and consider that feedback alongside uh this draft that's being presented to you today for first review. Um if you'll notice it's very similar to this year's draft. There is one additional student day. So it's 175 uh calendar year uh for student days and this year was 174. Um some other changes, um we decided to go with a staggered open

031house to allow families that have students across all four buildings. Sometimes uh sometimes it's just even with the hours of 11 to 7, it's really hard to get to all four buildings. So uh we staggered that to have uh middle school, high school on uh one day 11 to 7 and central Paris on another 11 to 7 to hopefully provide some more time for those families. Um, spring break has gone back to being the first full week in April. Uh, last year it was just the first week and and that's in alignment with Al Mar's calendar. Um, as we do have students who um follow that schedule for for different placement. So, we've been trying to align that uh for transportation purposes. Um there were about 200 families and 85 staff responses um that uh

032gave us feedback on the surveys and um overall in terms of there was one question on there that asked overall do you support the calendar and we had an average of about 93% across staff and families uh who did support um the calendar. Uh that's not to say that there aren't a lot of um you know comments to things desires that that people have. It's a little hard sometimes to try to coales all those individual comments, but I I did want to mention some themes that were in um particularly the the family survey. Uh worth mentioning just um concerns about no longer being a 180day calendar and then uh quite quite a bit of commentary this year um about a desire for a later um August or September start date. >> I agree. Personally, I

033mention this every year. First thing, I'd like to see it start after Labor Day again, but by myself, >> we discussed as the calendar committee there was a um you know, of course, this is just the first draft and so we're welcome to, you know, be happy to take feedback and and go back to the drawing board, but I think uh the calendar committee wanted a little bit more uh direction if that was something we wanted to, you know, come up with a second draft to see what that would look like if we did start. I know the biggest concern is that at the high school we align um our our calendar uh so that we can complete first semester before winter break and so school divisions that do have a later start date whether

034it be in August or September um looking at their calendars uh it would it would there do it would mean that after winter break right we'd have several weeks um of per semester still for the high school so that would that would be something to keep in mind I don't know Um, pay tech works in PDC, but I guess that would have some. >> The other thing is altered the payroll cycle. So, all of our 10 month people would go a month. Okay. >> How did we do it for the all the time that we started after September before the before this? >> They we transitioned to starting earlier in August. So, they actually received two paychecks in August. They had already been with us. >> Gotcha. >> And I'm sure that they've forgotten that

035now. He said to them when that happened, if you ever go back to a post Labor Day start, then you will lose a paycheck. So remember to save that paycheck. I'm sure they all did that. >> Oh gosh. >> 10 years. >> Oh, it's been more than 10. >> More than 10. Yeah, I could say somewhere. Yeah, >> it's been a while. >> And I will say um so there were some comments on the staff survey about returning to but minimal to 180day calendar, but the majority of the comments about the later start date that was all from the family survey. >> Did any of the staff talk about the day and a half before winter break and potentially changing that? Uh just that it's appreciated to have time to turn over a semester before

036one before and one after. >> Yeah, I just heard a lot about the Friday before winter break of you're home for half a day on Thursday, come back Friday and I'm not recommending this. Just passing along feedback potentially just staying all day Thursday and then coming back two days after winter break and then kind of like a work in the classroom, get everything ready to go before. >> That's what we used to do. >> Yeah. Prior to the prior to last year, we did whatever the last day of break was was early release and then when we came back, we had the two staff days. We made the change last year based on feedback that particularly at the secondary level that um it it would be uh better if they could kind of have split.

037>> Yeah. If if the if staff aren't voicing that if they want to go back to the old way, I think that's what and we we align this this isn't record. That's my two. That's about the only feedback I've heard calendar related, but and nobody was like beating down the doors. They were just saying might be nice to just end with the students on the same day and then come back and have two days. And >> it is hard because for every comment that you get saying one thing, you get another comment that says the exact opposite. So, but like I said, if you have questions or if there's anything that um you'd like me to reconvene the committee again to to take a look at or work to a second alternative draft, we'll be

038happy. >> I'm not suggesting we start after Labor Day. think of the people that have families from other places other than central Virginia, they they primarily go after Labor Day. So, I think it's hard for families to line things up. You know, she's my daughter's cousins are in another state, so if we're trying to line things up with families, it's really complicated on school and stuff. Anything else? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. [Laughter] We are on to the FY 25 and 26 budget update. >> I gotta be honest, I like the paper. >> We can start with 25. >> Yeah, the second one. >> Yeah, there we go. >> What's his name? Yeah, Mr. Weaver wanted it in paper. I'm gonna need this delivered to my house, too. >> Um,

039so you have in your packet the school year 25, which includes everything. Um, in an ideal world, we running about 50% in those categories. The one thing I'll point out to you, the reason you're not running 50% in things like instruction is that you have July, you have your June and July in June. So, you have extra payrolls in there. So, that is going to all even out as we go along. Um, and then um in the area of revenue, you see that we have all the um we're starting to get a lot more federal revenue now. We knew that that was going to tick up. It was just a little bit slower processing at the Department of Ed. Um I I will tell you honestly there's a lot of turnover out of the Virginia

040Department of Health. It is a challenge with a lot of the grants and things that we manage that we have new people. Um we think you have person that person. So it's it's a lot of that that's a little bit challenging right now for everybody that's working with our federal programs. And then the the second page includes all of your supplemental appropriations and also um outlines the category to your budget. Um so the only time we've done we did a categorical amendment at the start of the year when we finished doing payroll back in August for what was originally approved and then these are the other categorical agreements that are there. But all of those have now been added to the budget and many of those were things that grants that were expiring actually already

041been submitted for reimbursement. >> I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Any questions for Miss Bradford? >> All right. Thank you so much. We are rolling on on to >> I was just gonna say we debated whether or not to put not this document but the the spreadsheet that grass walk simply because it just we just got this and it's it's very hard to read. It's difficult to It's difficult to understand if you don't have somebody that >> Okay. >> I I thought it would be ultimately we put it in there. I thought it would be helpful for us to to walk through it so that you see the detail and you at least see the variables. I think that will be valuable for you and and it may spark some

042discussion, but I just want >> Yes. We're going to go to the p the first handout. Yes. >> So I know in December, Miss Carlo Berner came and uh spoke in depth about two of the positions that have been previously funded with ESSER and are currently in our allin budget. And I thought it probably be helpful if we came and um kind of took a similar approach to how we've done a salary study um and looking at comparisons of these positions. We've worked really hard over the past couple years to make sure that, you know, we're identifying needs and being good stewards of additional federal and state monies that we're getting uh the last few years due to the pandemic and and then also working to gradually eliminate that spending so that we're avoiding that

043COVID funding clip that that we often hear about. uh but there have been three areas of need that continue to um be identified as barriers to student success both both at the state level and in blue in terms of literacy uh attendance and mental health. Um and hence these these nine positions uh I know you've seen before but they are uh what's currently uh or what has been funded out of Esser and Matt expired at the end of September and then what's currently being funded um out of all-in right now. Um, so we've kind of kind of still had saw a need for these and and and when the all-in funding came last year, um, chose to um, use some of that funding to continue to support these positions. >> Can I ask a clarifying

044question of all the COVID positions that we had during COVID grant funding, etc. Those positions are now either have been voted on publicly and moved into our recurring budget, two have been deprecated slash removed through attrition >> or three are on this page. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Is there any single position that doesn't meet one of those qualifiers? Is there anything where we kept a job and just added to the recurring budget and it never saw the light of day? You mean that was that was an assert like an funded position? >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, aside from the uh student support and attendance roles, um all of these positions except for for attendance and student support have existed in some capacity in uh o over the years. as long

045as I can remember just in different capacities and sometimes they've been absent due to budget cuts. But um you know ultimately all of these positions are falling under the umbrella of of supporting our teachers and our administrators in the buildings to to ultimately meet the need of students. Um, I think you could also make a case that having these support positions um does positively impact um building level morale and perhaps uh teacher retention to to some aspects since uh at times when we've not had these types of support positions. Uh typically um a lot of these lists when it comes to implementing curriculum and assessments and resource planning or uh particularly this this year has I know we've heard a lot from teachers about um the Virginia Literacy Act and just the mandated curriculum and

046training and reading plans. It has been a lot on our teachers. Um and it's been a lot on our teachers with having the benefit of having two uh literacy specialists and and more reading specialist than we've had um prior to co. Um, so I thought if we kind of went through and just uh looked at the different roles, but then also look at some data in terms of like we've done with salary comparisons um what our what those neighboring divisions and their support looks like. And then um roughly some some data just trying to compare uh where we're at in terms of um student success as it as it relates possibly to support the positions. >> So can you go back to the >> Yeah. So uh our instructional aids play a huge role in

047our in our ability to carry out the daily schedule for our students. uh they provide coverage for teachers so they can participate in professional learning communities. They provide small group uh instruction directly to students. They substitute when we can't find coverage uh for a classroom teacher. Uh I know you've probably seen many of them out in the in the AM and and PM on pickup and drop off duties. They help with lunch coverage, recess coverage. Uh we even have instructional aids that uh if there's a need that arises to to transport a student, they're able to help us with those needs as well. In terms of our division level literacy and math specialists, we currently have one math specialist for all of K12 and then we have two division literacy specialists. one they they work

048together collaboratively, but one specifically day-to-day support of of of coaching and resources for teachers focuses on K4 elementary uh and and our other position is secondary five 5 through 12. Um but but they really are a heavy lift for curriculum implementation, SOS, assessments, um providing that lesson planning and resources support to teachers. um they help building admin, ensuring vertical alignment uh both within the grades and across schools as well as with data analysis. And like I said, just a a huge help in um the Virginia Literacy Act implementation this year. Um and then we also had new math and so implementation uh assessments this year and um we are down to one math specialist and K12. We we made it work, but we definitely um you know felt some of the the growing pains of

049when we previously had uh two um math specialists in the division. And then our our reading specialists and math interventionists, uh they're really the su the positions that are providing that additional targeted support to students uh in order to support the classroom teacher and what's happening in the core curriculum. We currently have three reading specialists, K2. Uh we have a position at Car's Brook Elementary that is currently unfilled, but that our elementary literacy specialist is supporting uh that role as well. Uh we have one at the middle school and then one part-time um reading specialist that position at the high school, which which is a a new position this year. Um and then for math, we have two part-time math interventionists. uh one at middle school and one at high school. And then uh we

050use uh really rely on our instructional assistance to help support elementary math interventions for our teachers. So these are the neighboring divisions that we um have used in our salary study comparisons in the past. So I thought it might be good to see um just a comparison of different supports for these roles and in those neighboring divisions. So here is literacy support. I um probably should have done like a total column. So um it was kind of tricky. Um divisions implement different roles and call things different ways. So it was really kind of hard. Same same with when we were looking at salaries and roles. sometimes tricky to um compare apples to apples, but um for example in Louisa, their six reading specialists really operate like our current two division literacy specialists and then their

05115 um licensed interventionists are really what we call our reading specialists if if that makes sense. So um but guess either way you look at it um in terms of total positions in terms of FTE um is is last um in terms of literacy support positions. >> I have a question while we're right here. What makes Charlottesville such an outlier when we compare enrollment to us with the number of reading specialists and instructional coaches? >> I mean, why they have them? >> Not why they have them. Like, why are they almost five times the number of I I know the value in these positions, so I'm not saying we shouldn't have them. I'm just curious why with roughly a thousand more students five times >> their funding they're funding >> but that's so where my

052mind is with this and I've been pretty vocal about this over the past few months just while I continue to look into this I we could use more of them do we need 24 roughly like how far behind are we if we look at Charlottesville basically being the closest here and knowing we're that far behind in reading specialists what what number do we need because we're talking about hopefully keeping the bare minimum >> here to advocate today is if trying to paint a picture of >> and I'll help you advocate as much as you need to >> we have excess uh in these roles in terms of support uh I don't think that we need 24 in but uh we would like to keep what we have >> is that enough though as we're looking

053at these other ones like obviously Alamar and Charlesville have way more money than what we do but I feel like we're just barely scraping by with these positions. Not the people, the number of the people. People are awesome. I've worked with some of them outside of the board. But >> and I can remember back in gosh, 2005, 2006, like we used to have a I think we had two possibly reading specialists at at the middle school, for example, and those positions were, you know, just eliminated just due to budget over the the years. And um so um you know since co um we're just excited that we you know since co we we have been able to have a reading specialist at the middle school because with grade five that that is still elementary and

054there's definitely still a need and and like I said he for nothing but positive um things about the support of being able to um offer that same structure this year to the high school. >> Right. So when we look at advocating for where we're at right now, just keep these positions. If we were to advocate and say we're this far behind our neighboring divisions, we can't one lose them. How like how do we qualify that? That's one thing that I'm trying to get really more detailed on for this budget round. How do we qualify these things to say we can't lose them because we're already this far behind? Like we can show that with salaries and things like that. It's kind of harder with this because it's just numbers in an Excel sheet to the

055final decision makers, so to speak. But how do we qualify that to say one, if we lose them, this is what's going to happen with scores and student success, things like that. But ideally, we don't need five. We need 15 reading specialists in so we can't cut into these. >> Actually, can I I might be able to help a little bit on this. I'm sorry for u is there are there industry standards for recommendated recommended ratio? Sorry, Mike. Um, so the the very end because I thought it would be fair, right, if we're saying here's what we need, it'd probably be also fair to say here's what's required, right? Here's what we're legislated. So at the very end on slide 16 and 17, I've got the ratios and what's legislated. >> So that's legislated, but

056are there recommend? So that's what the state tells us that we have to do all while, you know, all while holding the first stream and giving us like 25% of what we need to get it done. Are there industry organizations like for instance like the the school counselor organizations indicate a 250 or 300 to1 ratio as being the recommended do we have that do we have a similar recommended industry standard >> well I can give you a similar scenario like when we we look at what's required currently we have uh three reading specialist positions pay one and two um we don't need three we need suit to to meet legislation. Uh however, um industry standards or you know research frontloading early literacy right is is would be a priority and and that's why we even

057the years that we didn't have a middle school reading specialist. We chose to prioritize what was happening phase two with reading specialists. Um the other thing is is staffing whether or not you can find you know 15 15 reading specialists. Um >> I love that could be our biggest problem. I I mean if you look at if you consider the enrollment and extend the questions that you're asking Louisa really has more support in classrooms than any of the divisions here. I I think this is really helpful >> and and then you someone mentioned achievement data. So I'll go but on the next slide it's just a comparison of of reading so data and um I'm not so sure that so data is the best representation in terms of reading progress but it's really the only

058way I think we have when we're looking big picture outside of K2 to look at reading progress in compar last in terms of so pass rate for last year um But we're certainly not where we want to be. And um you know, I know when we looked back in October at student reading achievement data, we you know, we've made a lot of gains particularly uh in some of our student subgroups in reading and English the last three years, but but again, we still have quite a bit of work to do to meet literacy needs. >> Well, Charlottville numbers are the lowest. So that's probably a correlation why they have more of those positions and they do have a different population. That's probably >> which is probably a target area that needs support. >> Yeah. And

059and there's I was going to mention that along those lines there's there's an empirical correlation between academic achievement and specifically reading levels with socioeconomic status. It I'm not suggesting one necessarily the other way. There is and ours is increasing. It has increased people just so I just think that's not worth and I do think that that probably has despite the repeatable disparity so high they do have I think significant do we so you know this data is is rich and incredibly useful and is also multi-dimensional, meaning that Blue Vana and Charlottesville look different for a number of reasons. A method that I use to sort of like sus out impact as as Mr. Reed um promises to be and I'm sure he will be focused on what do we get for our dollars spent. One

060way that I sort of like look at these things to try to look for impact is sort of a um within unit analysis. And so a question would be are there any of these divisions that um added read substantial reading or math specialist in a recent year and can we track performance data uh over that like intervention period. So functionally it's zero they had five and then they went to 15 and then we see so or other performance data jump from X to Y. Is there anything that we can do on reading and math specialists to put skin on sort of their like net impact um in the short term? >> That's a good question. >> Yeah, I mean anecdotally I I know that everyone's uh support in terms of reading or or math intervention

061specialists kind of skyrocketed when we got all the sort of funds and we were all posting and trying to compete with uh with filling the same position. So um so I mean I I definitely think you could assume that um post postco we all saw an increase but but some more than others and then and then again there's been increases in federal dollar orders like title one that are following and like as your key point out when you when you have Charlottesville in their demographics they have more title one dollars that are are going to them for example. I I think maybe my um and my broad point is if we can if we think of examples of what our neighbors have done related to any of these and if there's an outlier that we

062can use as an instrument to measure impact that could be useful. For instance, when we're talking about the attendance group, it's it's really lovely to look over at Louisa because they have a clear like before and after, right? You go from zero or one or people doing it part-time to being five people on attendance. Well, you're going to see measure you're going to see what the five people in attendance can do. So to the extent that we can think of anecdotes or outliers for the divisions related to reading specialist, math specialist at this, it just provides sort of an opportunity to double click and then to bring that evidence to the board of supervisors to say this is what we get when we hire these staff. So to the extent that a brain trust can

063think of any of these as isolated um experiments that would be useful. Well, uh on the on the next slide is a comparison of the different map um support roles in neighboring divisions. Um and again um comparatively uh in terms of the total FTEES uh we are last um however if you look on the next slide uh in terms of math um achievement um you know we've made um some considerable gains the past three years uh since we increased u mass support uh and again not where we want to be But but not last >> in the fly reading. So yeah, >> I just can we go back to the previous slide? >> I just want to park there for a moment. letter and if there are any questions. There's some there's some organic differences

064in the way school divisions obviously instruction. Yes, I think you made a point that sort of like pre our graph on the next slide and don't change the page or anything that that we had less mass support. We implemented math specialists and then we've seen our relative so scores increase. um how confident and or willing are you to indicate that the changes that we've seen in our so performance data is related to or significantly driven by having the math specialists there for intervention. I I wouldn't say that, you know, big picture um student success, you know, relies on one person, right? It's it's teamwork. It is part of a team. And I I would say that uh when we don't have support positions like this to support our classroom teachers, um it can it could

065impact student success. It could not. It depends on it depends on the kids. I mean there's a lot of you know variables I think that go into that. Um but I do think uh when you can have more I think resources and materials are great but I think what matters are people and staff and um and when we'll have a higher uh increase in in people resources that are um directly interacting um with students to provide support um and yes I would say that there there is absolutely a coition. Yeah, sorry. And I'm not trying to We're talking about individual roles here roles here that are on the chopping block slash on in our budget priorities. So I'm focused on them and their impact and their contribution to the ecosystem. I'm not trying to minimize

066the fact that it is one person or two people and they're funneling up around our ecosystem and and of course these people are you know this is one plus one equals three and kind of garbage business speak right. We want people these roles provide um benefits across the ecosystem to help our students perform better. But you know this trend trend in our math data at a time where we've added math specialist I think is pretty compelling. >> I could add something here. The other thing to keep in mind when you're looking at all of this is we've been under a teacher shortage. The teachers that we get in are not trained at the same level that they were and haven't gone through traditional teacher prep programs and so they're learning on the job and these

067people are really critical in helping to bridge that gap when somebody comes in and is unsure of how to teach a certain concept. they're there to provide that support for that. And that's also a very critical piece to all this. Caitlyn spoke again last month about um you know the all of the different um things that role that our student outreach support specialists and and our attendance um outreach are playing. And so I didn't know if there were any questions or Kayla wanted to add anything else. we tried to summarize from from her lovely presentation, but I I did just kind of want to emphasize that um those roles also have a really great impact on student achievement if students aren't are coming to school or they are but they aren't ready to learn. um

068attendance and mental health um again alongside literacy um have been three things that we have consistently been identifying the past several years as as just barriers to student success um and areas in which uh teachers are are asking for additional support. >> Any questions? really we just wanted to add and I think last time I talked a lot about the I'm sorry I just we talked a lot about just the attendance side of things which is incredibly valuable and our student outreach does a lot of that as well but I just really wanted to highlight what this specific position is doing um not just relating to attendance but overseeing our entire substance use program um helping to support um our risk and threat assessments that's sometimes happening at school uh attend court hearings. We just

069came from court. We were there for a year and a half. So uh we uh that position itself um encompasses a lot in addition to attendance. Um and then we also talked about our attendance position that is focused on attendance with our folks within the schools um as a division level. Um and this um and right uh and lumped all together. So these are positions within a division that focus on school social work, mental health, student outreach and attendance because again it was really hard comparing apple to apples and it seemed to be some overlap and differences and how different divisions were implementing it. there is a total number of just um positions in each uh division that fall under that umbrella and and so um our number four here I would just um add

070is my position as a mental health coordinator student outreach our attendance outreach and our school social worker and so um our team um supports the division as a whole related to mental health but like says that encompasses a lot um not just attendance, not just mental health referrals, but substance use, risk assessments, court services, student outreach. Um >> yeah, it seemed like Miss Cargo were way more >> and then in terms of I guess data supporting it, chronic absences and data was something that was available. We were able to compare across districts. Uh remember this is the percent of students who have missed 10% or more of days. So this isn't our attendance rate. It's just the percent of students of who missed I guess last year was miss 17 or more days. Um in

071202122 we were at 42% of students chronically absent. we've done a lot of work um and and have seen huge decrease in last year at 27% but then when you go over and look in and comparing to to other divisions um >> I I do think there's probably I mean there there's a layer of analysis to understand exactly how the positions on the previous slide are being used. I know personally just because of my connection having worked there for a decade I feel like I know what's happening in Houston, but I was surprised to see how much they invested in this. Uh I take 11 positions >> and you can see it seems to have had a direct impact. I I I do think that, you know, we have to be careful just jumping right

072there. But I know that in Louisiana that that's been the case and it's very targeted support. It's a big investment. There's very targeted support to get kids to school um in pretty non-conventional ways physically picking up kids and bringing >> and I I wanted to add also um I I keep a lot of data also on these programs last school year. Uh we had a total of 200 students referred to the mental health team. And what I mean by that is um mental health referrals for agencies that we have to speak directly with myself or our student outreach or the social worker. Um 200 students already as of now we have 148 that have been referred to my family. Um so we're already almost to that of the entire school year. Um and last year

073also we had 65 students total that went through our substance use program. we already have 39 students. And so I just really wanted to give you those numbers so that you could see that um despite us having these positions, the need is still there. It's growing. Um and so we're we're constantly um playing catchup. And these reasons are exact reasons um why kids aren't coming to school, substance use in the home, um needing, you know, running water, electricity, um food, clothing, um and parent mental health is something that we see a lot of. And so, um they're definitely being impacted. >> Uh can I ask you a question? Um, so obviously I'm a huge fan of your team and and what you all do and the impact you're having on our students. Ideally, we would

074continue to to add to your team structure in order to support the the rising needs. Funds are not endless and budget years are hard. So the kind of tough question I want to ask is let's just if if one of your positions is not carried through and your team shrinks you from four to three next year. What are the things you're going to stop doing in order to I don't know sleep at night or see your family? >> Um that's a really hard question because my three outreach oversees my entire substance use program >> um and does all of the education. So she individually has done 39 student educations a year that would likely fall on myself to do which is perfectly fine except um I do a lot of other things in our own

075um if we were to lose our attendance outreach specialist uh our schools would suffer. the individuals that are at the schools, >> one person at each school, right? And then a person at Abrams that supports attendance and does daily attendance. But at least two of those positions are not just doing attendance, they are doing other duties as well. So this position goes into each of the schools and really is catching those students that are hidden five days, seven days, 10 days so that we can figure out what the need is. And I I wish I had the numbers, but over 75% of those families have some sort of student outreach need, whether it's food, whether they um need some sort of uh mental health resource, psychological resource, testing, um maybe they just need help getting

076the kids to school in the morning because they're not getting up. Um that's where we intervene. And and I want to also add our school counselors are part of our team across the division while they're in the school. um they support us just as we support them. Um and so their positions are just equally as vital um to what we do on our mental health team for our students and for our teachers. A big part of my job is supporting our staff. Um and I would not be able to do that adequately if I did not have a student outreach providing substance use education or going to court for two and a half hours as we did today. >> Any more questions? Yeah, I'm gonna make a comment here. U either one of y'all see

077your see the schools as trying to take place of what the parents ought to be doing. I mean, I know I grew up in a different town. Um, my my mother was home, you know, every day and my father went to work and >> I'm really glad that you asked that because that's something that we encounter a lot. I think what's difficult is that specifically about mental health resources, we have no public transportation. So these families cannot get their kids um to appointments for therapy after school if they're working >> or doing it there >> or online if they have no internet. And I cannot tell you how many families in the community do not have access to internet. And so um it is difficult. We try to partner with the parents so that we

078can meet that child's need in a way that doesn't impact their academics but improves their academics because what research is showing us is when their mental health is not great, neither are their academics, neither is their attendance. And so, um, we kind of play this balance. What we really want to do is get the kids to school and give them what they need from a holistic perspective, not just academics, but from that social emotional learning perspective. Um, most of the kids that we get referrals for for mental health services related to attendance, whatever it may be, um, there is some sort of need that is not being met in their home. And maybe that's just internet. We can't give them internet, but we can have them be at therapist at school that harms them once

079a week and pulls them from a class that they're doing really great in or pulls them from a time in the day that wouldn't impact their academics. Um, so we try to partner with the parents, I would say. Hope that answers your question. >> Yeah, somewhat. I mean, I know a lot of kids don't get support at home. They don't >> they're not encouraged. And and I will also add too, we have very few mental health resources in our community and at region 10 for instance, there are only two people providing outpatient therapy and I'm one of them. And so um it's difficult because there's such a high need for adult mental health and so a lot of these parents can't access services either. And so when you have a parent that has a significant

080substance use need or a mental health need, it's really challenging for them to meet their child's need. And so we just try to help them just like we talked about last time with attendance. We don't want to be punitive. We just want kids to live their best life and sometimes they just little extra. >> M question. >> I have one and I'm not rushing you by saying this. I was just going to wait for the info when y'all were done because I didn't know if you were going to answer it or not. Um, well, we can. So, I think I just have three more slides. The next one, um, you've seen that before. I I I threw it back in again. Um, you know, um, I wish I could say we did something dramatically different

081from spring of 23 to 24 in terms of our EL instructional program. Um, but but really um, what happened was we were able to have one EL teacher in each building. cancel, you know, they're instead of having case loads of of 40ish, they had case loads of of of 20-ish and um instead of having to travel or or split buildings. Um and I do think again having people and support and staffing um is really key uh to student success. This is one that's in in some of the proposals for the budget. So, I think we may end up seeing some additional mandates related to this. >> Well, and I put it back in there because I I also included it if you go to the next slide. Um I also included it in terms of

082legislation, right? What we're required to have for for reading instruction, English language instruction. Um so we talked about need um you know for reading we are now required with Virginia Literacy Act to provide uh reading intervention services and and having reading specialists uh in grades K8. Um however um you can see in those italicized you know we only have to have one reading specialist for each 550 in K5 and then one for 116 through 8. So, um, and same with English language instruction. Um, this keeps coming back up again and changing. They, the most recent change was it's now based instead of overall student count receiving services. They tell you, you know, how many positions per students of each level and that's based on their weed of proficiency test. The thing is that these the

083student population tends to be very transient in in terms of coming in transferring out and so it's really hard to keep a handle on um like if you if you take it down to I only need 2.5 teachers and then and that's where where you landed in the spring and then students transfer in out and it turns out you've got more level ones and twos than what you thought and you need another half EL teacher much like reading specialist incredibly hard um to to fill um this license position. And I'd like to just add that position in particular is vital for us related to attendance because uh we lean on code staff a lot to help us collaborate and communicate with families. Um especially families that speak Spanish. Um it's really difficult for us to

084make sure we're meeting their needs without any of us >> in the um any of the budget proposals since a lot of this funding came from the all-in money. Correct. >> From Governor Yncan, >> not this >> but the funding for the attendance position. >> Yeah. So all right. So these positions we initially had funded with ESER. We knew like they were expiring in September. And so the allin it had certain requirements like they wanted you to put 10% of that 1.1 million that we got to attendance. They wanted 20% to go to curriculum and 70%. >> Is there any anyone suggesting that they would continue that funding? [Music] >> No, it's not been jumping ahead a little bit, but it's not been continued in the coverage. >> Yeah. >> Proposal. Um, and in fact

085with with this, not to go down a rabbit trail, but currently our English language learners have 11 semesters to become proficient before they >> Yeah. >> Okay. So that that has been changed to three and the reason being given that Virginia is going to come in line with the the federal government which is interesting to me. Virginia doesn't usually do that. Um I'm just simply mentioning that because we're obviously doing well. I think as well as we can do that and that's with the 11 semesters. I think when we move to three, it's it's going to be even more critical to keep the support that we have. >> And I know I know it's hard to do this with elected boards because it changes so often. I say I mean it really does change every

086couple years. We could and in some counties inland you could change seven at once. Here I guess fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we don't do that. But when we um I I I hope that people see that would that have run for office that are on this board that are on the board down the hill that will run for office that when we accept these these monies from state and federal government we either have to have a plan for the future or we need to justify that fund that position without taking in my opinion the state money. I would much rather fund one of these positions with local funding than accept the state money and hope that it works out, you know, in years in the future, which is kind

087of where we're at here. I'm not saying we don't need the positions. I'm saying that if we need them, I would rather justify them here and fund them locally so that we're not in this in this position. And it depends. You could have a different board and this could be no problem. But obviously, we're not in that circumstance. So, >> yeah, I just don't understand. I've heard you make this argument before and in public places like it just doesn't make any sense to me continuously like our we had money from the government through grants and we had need for students. I don't know why you wouldn't put put the money where the need is and we've been very clear about how we're going to step down positions through attrition and like this is the process

088right this is the genuine outcome which is a terrible process. Why would you? If you have a if you have a problem and you identify a problem, we have the ability to fund that problem or fund fund the the what we think is the solution to that problem. Then we should do that locally. When and I'm not saying that we when we took that money, I voted against it. We took that money is because there was even with the Yncan administration who everybody knows I voted for, I disagree with his all-in money because there's no plan for the future. It's a let I'm going to make everybody happy. I'm going to throw money at this, but there's no plan. And the plan is on us knowing that most localities don't have the ability to they're

089going to face this exact problem. We have every locality in Virginia right now is having this exact this exact issue. >> Yeah. And that's part of governing. I mean like I don't understand to to what I'm hearing is like but if you had the ability to go back in time and and functionally remove the extra teachers that we put in the extra support for students because it didn't come from the local funding that you would >> is that right? >> I don't understand your question. >> I don't understand your argument. So the the point is what I'm hearing from you is don't use grant money for for positions because then we got to go through this process. And I'm like my response to that is like yeah of course it would be lovely for us

090not to have to worry about attrition and to not have to worry about stepping down positions. But like I I guess I don't I don't understand your argument. Like we had student need and we had grant money. you you put the money where it's effective for the students and like this process of going through and then trying to figure out either how to fund or not fund positions in the future is just part of doing business. So I I guess I don't understand your argument and uh why you believe that what we did to support our students is so horrendous. >> Nobody say it's horrendous. I said I don't agree with >> and I'll jump in here too. It's the planning piece that I struggle with. >> And the positions are needed. Quite frankly, we

091need more positions. >> We don't just need the ones that are here right now, >> but we're in a county that every sing and I mean, I'm not knocking on, but I kind of am. We continuously here, but we're not last. We know the money is not there in this county. Like, I'll I'll just come right out and say it. We can ask for 90 million or we can ask for 1 million. We're going to struggle for both because we don't have a business here. So my interjection into this argument is is if we know that's the environment that fluana has been in historically, it's probably going to be the environment that we're in moving forwards. Why create a volatile situation every one to two to three years? >> People's livelihoods on the line >>

092because then we are we there's got to be a happy medium and some h and I think it's two different versions of this. There's a happy medium between us and the board to be planning two to three years out meaning the board of supervisors so we can kind of get a better scale of where they're headed so that way we know where we're headed. Quite frankly, I think FUN has done a horrible job of that historically. Just putting it out there, but bringing energy to this meeting, but at the same time, we absolutely need to fill the need for students, but we can't say let's throw seven of them in there knowing there might not be a position for seven of them a year down the road. It's a it's a hard battle, but I'm

093not going to say it was a horrible initiative. They're not going to fill the needs. There are tons of federal grants that fund, not to interject, there's a ton of federal grants that fund positions >> that have tiered approaches to to transitioning the funding from the federal government to the locality. >> There's got to be a what's next. >> But there's there's there's a plan for those, but there the YNCAN administration and not just him, but there's been other grants where they provide a a cut off date and and we feel like we have to take that money. And I just felt like I still feel like we if we needed the positions, I'm not saying we don't, that if we justify them and fund them locally, it's harder to it's harder to to do

094away with those positions in the future than it is right now. If they're already in here, we justified them to our local government and we fund them locally. I just again I just don't think it was I understand why they did it. I just don't think it was the best I don't think the best planning was in place and I think that's why every county is having the same discussion right now. We only we have a handful of positions. There's some counties that have hundreds of these positions. >> We have a handful because this board and our staff did a fabulous job being very clear and this is why I asked that question earlier about what's in the budget, who's not in the budget, where these are is because we stepped down so many of

095these intentionally as funding ran out. It was inevitable that a handful of positions and probably in born homes were going to end up still as a either add it to the budget and ask for money or don't. But I got to tell you, I don't regret a single thing we did related to using funding for staff. And I know there are some staff in the room right now and I apologize that we put you all in in difficult positions. I 100% would do exactly what we did before because I believe that you all are the best people for the job and you're the best people that we need for our students and I'm okay with discomfort. Uh we're I'm going to speak out for this one. I'm sure you're not the only one that's okay

096with discomfort on this board. Just for what that's worth like we can get rid of the whole patronizing discomfort uncomfortable that can be done. Just put it out there, man. I hear that in every other meeting. We're okay with discomfort. We're h anytime we talk about conflict, it's discomfort naturally. My question would be since you're fine with your decision and Andrew or Mr. Poland is fine with his decision and I can see the both sides of this argument, how do we do a better job of it to plan moving forwards? There's a need there. There's a need for more. We don't have the money. we didn't have them. So, how do we make those meet to say instead of revisiting this same thing the next time that comes up and I don't think we even

097need to play hypotheticals. I'm just saying the next time grant funding comes around to staff five, seven, 20 positions, we need to that if I'm even on this board whenever that time comes, we need to have a conversation and maybe it was wasn't part of this board then about what's next so that way we don't invite a potentially bigger problem than we want to chew on. I think that's where this conversation can be summed up like right now we need to focus on how we retain these positions not what happened years ago with the dec that's done behind us done behind us we need to focus on how do we keep these but then how do we not try to put ourselves in this position next time truthfully like otherwise it's a vicious cycle where

098we're always trying to replace staff to meet the needs of students which that's going to be there forever but at the same time like we invite these volatile cycles a little bit more than others is we just do I mean >> well we're getting information now that we need to keep these positions >> right and that's they were needed then that's why I see your point they were needed when the money was invested hard part is now juggling insurance compensation staff like that's always going to be there but again it's like okay >> could it again hypothetical could it have been done a little different I don't know but I think that's something that needs to be taken into consideration next time that we have something like this come around. That's a county that doesn't

099have a lot of money. That's the hardest part. >> Yes, sir. >> The the other thing just I I want to remind everybody is that it was the November when I was walking through the historical structure of the division and what positions we had, what we lost. A lot of these positions we had >> we had we had these positions before um before the previous superintendent Mr. uh >> Dr. Smith was here we had positions >> why did I forget his name? >> So that brings me and I'm not trying to cut us off but actually right into the question that I was going to ask. My brain works where we hyperarget certain areas of things. I think that's one of the best ways. Some may disagree, but I think hyperargeting certain aspects of business

100education, whatever is the best way to do it when we hyperarget this specific presentation you all are looking at. Can we have the ideal structure? Not tonight. I know it's not possible, but the ideal structure for county even if literally you're like, we need 24 of these things. So that way we can go, we've done this with Dr. Gretz with a couple other scenarios and I think it's a perfect scenario. would be best benefited and supported with option A. We have option B. Option C is probably going to look different than both of them. But how do we compare what we have to what we need without knowing exactly what we need? And I think that's where the planning from you on reorgs and from office orgs and from you like >> it would be

101really beneficial to say okay we're trying to keep these positions but when we pitch the board of supervisors whatever we need we really need nine of them not just three because that's how we qualify this in my we qualify by saying we're already behind this is why we need you. >> I agree. So, and if y'all don't mind putting something like that together, like >> so like a here's what we're required to have. Here's what we currently have and would like to keep. Here's what ideally >> and here's the ideal scenario. But I also think it helps a lot having compared to our neighboring districts because like everything that we're reading is behind absolutely everything. But if we can keep saying this is the ideal structure, it helps us go to bat for you guys

102in these areas instead of being like, well, we know it's needed, but we we can't qualify because we're not in it hands-on. >> And I do think over the last couple years, things outside of, you know, we have tried to plan and what's coming ahead, like our English language instruction, none of that has ever been funded out of um ESER or or all in funds. That was a local lift. last year when we had similar conversations when we knew um ESER was expiring and then there was like um the high school ITRT position there were some elementary positions to keep class sizes low and something else I'm neglecting to say but you know was picked up locally uh because we knew it wasn't anything that we could support with the all-in funds and those parameters

103um similarly in terms of I think somebody asked the question of is there any new new monies No, but um you know in transparency so the all-in money that we carried over this year, anything we don't spend this year, we do have one more year that we can carry it over to FY26. Um if we decide not to do any more purchasing with like curriculum adoption, textbook and and things which um I think just some other things that are happening at the state and and timelines um our teachers are kind of saying let's just pause on that anyways. you know, we could carry that money over that we were going to spend on that this year. We could carry it over next year to help support some of this, but again, I get that it

104just kind of kicks the can can down the road for one more year. There are also some things that you could do in terms of other grants like title one and um some other things where some of these positions would fit for funding, but it's just going to come at a cost to, you know, something else that's already being funded. But you could certainly prioritize um some of the some of these positions that way. >> Any more questions? >> Thank you all. >> Oh, and then there was Go ahead. >> What we were required in terms of legislation to have um for for math, we don't have to have interventionist per se, but we do have to have someone licensed um providing algebra readiness intervention. Um, but it could be the classroom teacher. Um, and

105then, uh, student support. That was just the specialized position ratio for for things like social workers and behavior specialists. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. >> All right. We are moving on to the learning resources committee discussion and unfinished business. >> Oh, not yet. All right. >> So, just to to >> transition have for you is the governor's proposed budget how that looks in our uh specific template some of the variables that are in there. And I guess what I'll say to you is every year recently we've seen kind of unprecedented fluctuations in timelines and when when not necessarily when the governor makes a proposal but when we get our template there was a big mistake that was made in it two years ago last year >> last year >> if you recall and so this

106year new staff and how you made that mistake new states are very reticent to put stuff out make another mistake totally understand by the same token our building you clear information is directly proportional to what are their hands on that day. So, uh, and the other thing I'll say is I just think that what we've seen the last few years are significant disparities between what the general assembly ultimately does, what the Senate proposes, what the House proposes from. So, so really wild disparities in what's presented in December and what we use as a basis to build the budget and what we ultimately end up with. I think this one this year has the potential to be even more >> I apologize in advance. Um, I will I promise to make this something more understandable by

107the next time we meet to talk about it, but when you see it, don't hate me too much. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, I'm going to try to talk you go a little bit smaller so I can show the different lines we have going on here. >> That's good. >> Okay. So, what What I've done is th is the template that this is the template that comes out directly from the state. So all of these lines over here are the are the same on the template no matter what. And then what I've done is looked at the projected um 25. The projected enrollment there was 3,300. That's what we had in there. And this is what the general assembly approved um back in May when they finally did a budget. So

108this was the budget we were operating off of. Remember we're in the second year of the bianium. So when they release the new budget, they don't just release one for 26. They revise 25 and then do a new one for 26. So over here in this column is the governor's proposed 25 budget. So you can kind of see there what he proposed compared to what the general assembly had in their budget in May. And then this column is the difference between those two. So I've gone through each line and looked at which lines are are plus and which ones are minus. The biggest change on this one is a reduction in governor school. It's about $150,000 reduction to governor school. That's likely partly due to the enrollment in Governor school because what they look at

109is how many kids you projected to have in Governor school and how many kids are actually there. And so that might be that is and the other thing to remember there is that that's not our money. Um so what we'll do in our budget is that that actually happens we'll reduce the expenditure authority for governor. And then if you go all the way down to the bottom to this And then if you look at the bottom there, it's about a $250,000 difference between what the general assembly told us they were going to give us in May and what the governor is proposing that we actually get at the end of the year. >> decrease of 250 >> and again 150,000 of that is related to governor school. Part of that decrease is also in um

110the Virginia preschool. So it could be we have fewer students there than we had budgeted um originally preschool. Yeah. Are we below the cap? >> Yeah. So that's pro that's partly what that is. So if we go back up to the top, we start looking at 26. And we had we one of the things we heard we Dr. Gretz and I were at a conference virtually Monday and Tuesday that only dealt with school finance. So that was the big part of what we were taking a look at there. And one of the big things we heard they had a couple of general assembly members come in and speak and they said, "Well, technically we have a budget and so we can just keep the one we have. We don't have to change anything." So even

111though the governor proposed this budget, they could go back and say, "No, we don't want to change anything and this is what we're doing." Now, he has to still sign off on it. I'm sure that there I've never seen that actually happen, so I don't think it's going to happen. Um, but it could >> still Well, just the general simply saying, "We're not going to change it." They don't change anything. They never do that. They always change it. >> They could. >> Yeah. That they could do. >> And we have seen them do that. Um, so one of the big things that's going to impact us in 26 that's also impacting us in 25 is the change in our enrollment. So we had projected 3,300. We're running around 3,250 right now I think. Um, so

112that drops that enrollment and I did some math on that. I think it's about $7,000 per kid that you lose in state money when that happens. One of the things to understand is it's not it's not a straight um dollar for dollar. So some of these lines are impacted by your enrollment and others of them are fixed costs that don't change by the enrollment. A good example of that is the um money we get for technology to be PSA money. That's just set dollar amount by the number of schools we have. It's got nothing to do with how many kids are in the school. Technically, if you have one kid in the school, you'd still get that same amount of money. Um, so some of that doesn't change, but other parts of it do. Um,

113and you can kind of see that where that really starts to impact us is is on basic aid because it drops basic aid and sales tax. Typically the thing that we're hearing in the conference um in the last couple days which I think is pretty much the same thing we've heard for the last three years is there is this huge surplus in revenue for the state and they're they're reluctant to spend that revenue because they're saying that well the economy could tank and then what are we going to do? we don't have this revenue. And so they're really kind of putting a lot of that revenue when they're spending it into one time fixed cost and not into personnel. So that's one of the things we're hearing. And what's not in this template that's planned

114is additional school construction dollars that schools can apply for if they want to build schools or make modifications to schools. I will say one of the big things with that money is there's certain things you cannot do with that school construction money. One of them is paving. Like you can't do any kind of paving. You also can't do anything with athletic facilities. It has to strictly be something for schools. Um I'm kind of all over the place and I apologize for that. Um, but when you go down to the bottom of this spreadsheet for what we're looking at for 26, we had projected state revenue um this year of $30,750,000. We're going to have less than that because of the enrollment. Part of that did include monies that we had for all in that were

115not in the template. Um, like Miss Sora said, there's a possibility we could carry over about $360,000 of that into next year, but as it stands right now, this would be about $560,000 less than what we got this year in state revenue just right off the bat. The other piece of that is there is a 3% salary increase in this budget. A 3% salary increase cost you around a million dollar. I really can't explain it, but there's about $994,000 in here to cover a salary increase of 3%. So, it is going to cover most of that cost. The problem is you have to increase those salaries to have those fund that funding. And so really what I'm saying to you is your budget's about 1.5 million to two million off of where you're going to

116be because of that salary increase that you have to do to meet this. Does that make sense? >> You get a 3% increase, but it's a wash in. >> Right. So, are you saying if we hold constant our existing spending levels just do a 3% increase, we're shy of 1.5? >> Yes. >> And that's before we've really done a deep dive into federal funds. I don't anticipate much change there, but we did carry over some federal funds last year. So, we're starting 1.5 million behind before we touch any of the stuff we talked about today. Before we touch um insurance, before the only thing that that's included in that is a 3% increase. >> Yes. >> For those at home, that's uh that's the uh critical point. >> So, you could, you know, like she

117said, you could take that all-in money that you have your carrier. is about 360,000. If we didn't, we would not be doing some other things in order to carry that money over and you could potentially cover those positions that you that we talked about today, but you're still going to have to come up with $1.5 million to make your budget hold. >> Yeah. And I I think some of what we really want to do is take a deep dive into where there's always some fluctuation. You know, basic changes, lottery changes, because at the end of the day, this is this is not this is not meant to be commentary other than just is just numbers. The governor's proposal includes $4.7 billion in additional general funds funding. 4.7 billion. what's included for schools is 286 billion.

118So it's it's a relatively small amount. It's a pretty when you think about 4.7 billion and I think for whatever reason uh a large part of that is going to support >> Yeah. They were telling us if they just get rid of the car tax then they decide to get rid of his legislation that would eliminate car tax then that brings a lot more revenue into the budget. So one of the things we talked about a lot of things not budget I was surprised any there's there's no support address doesn't address this >> you're shocked by this >> I I I thought there there was some movement there last year I thought there would be more with the JR study and it's gotten a lot >> we didn't hear much from the legislators about that

119they kind we'll take a look at it. You know, it wasn't it was nobody was like, "Oh, yeah, we we need to take a look at this." There's also talk of the general assembly might add a 1% bonus and or a 1% additional raise. So, that would change the raise from three to four. Um, >> but that that was the punch line you really wanted to get out for the sake of time. I mean, are there questions that you have? things here wants to delve into. You can spend a little bit of time in the spreadsheet obviously like Mrs. said all this if this is more accessible here draft. >> So that ADM number looks low by comparison. Obviously we had an over projection last year. We're I was just looking at the numbers. We're

120we're obviously shy some students as as compared to that number. You pull up that power. There's an enrollment slide. >> But so you're estimating that not this spreadsheet has a number 31.95 as a starting place. If I'm looking at our students in the building now, I'm looking at 3259. So unless we think we have an enrollment loss of 100 students, we got about 100 kids missing from the spreadsheet. Right. >> It's seven. So, >> so thankfully you've contracted to do an enrollment study which could be very helpful. >> Yeah, I think that data will be important. >> Um, so this is this is what I typically do is I take I take what you've got in um what your actual kindergarten number is and roll it up. And I'll be honest on this one, we

121actually added six kids after I had done my roll up. So I could add six kids there. Um but typically we kind of just take it and roll it up and I usually round. I don't you know do.5 kids or 52 or whatever. Um the pattern the thing that's difficult there's two things that are very difficult for me about this because I obviously I'm looking at this for a pretty historic period of time. But what I used to see is around 8th grade or ninth grade we'd actually see an uptick in students. What we saw the past year is more students going homeschooling, specifically doing virtual school. Now, I, you know, we talked about that today. I don't know if that pattern is going to continue. I don't know if you know people had some

122really good success with virtual programming when we were out for COVID and so they decided they wanted to continue it or if you know people the ones that are in school middle school now are like no I want to come to school I like you know being here I don't want to be virtual I I don't know what that's going to look like that's a tough one because that's just a very recent phenomenon the other thing I have a difficult top of my hand on is kindergarten. And that's always the case. We just never quite know what that kindergarten number is going to be. And you know, last year we had that big jump at kindergarten where we went from 215 to 246. Um, and a lot of that was people were like, you know,

123we had co I'm just hang my kid out one more year. I'm not going to send them to school yet. And so that's kind of where we saw that bump. And then I thought, well, we'll probably see a little bit of continuation with that fall this year when we did the projections, but now we're we're at 206 in kindergarten. So, we went from 246 to 206. I'm estimating that we would be around 200, but it's really hard for me to say. I've looked at the live birth data and looked at the trend of what we've seen typically. Um, we did see a bump. the year effort did something different with their school and then we also had the is it St. Chris's there was for a short period of time there was a Catholic school

124that was doing K5 I think um three >> talking about St. Peter Paul >> St. Peter called, they had a whole school that they did for a little while. They they got rid of it. >> And so we the year those things closed then we saw that bump there. So it's just hard for me to say. It's an estimate. Um you know, I was telling Dr. Gretz earlier I could probably round that number up a little bit. The the danger you run into though is you know like where we're sitting now. One of the things that I do that um is going to be important for the next person to do is I'm monitoring the expenditure budget, but I'm also monitoring the revenue budget at the same time. And if you don't do those together,

125then that's when you get in trouble because you're with us 50% of our revenue is state. And so if you're not watching things like your enrollment and those templates and making sure that they didn't change something around when you then you that's when you find that you have a shortfall. You're not over your expenditure authority and technically you can do that but then you have to go back to the county and say oopsies we need another $300,000 because we're not going to get this revenue in. And legally they have to provide you with those funds but that's not the position that we want to be in. So, >> so you're saying you're looking for a retirement, too? >> Uhhuh. >> Um, but I I know that that this what I presented you tonight is super

126complicated. There's a lot of data there and when you go back and look at it later, you'll appreciate me more. But, um, I will try to bring this to you in a little more concise manner. But, you know, at this point, I I will need feedback from you as we move into February. We're in January now. We need to know like how do we want this to look? We know we have to do a 3% raise. So, that's that's a no-brainer >> in order to get state >> in order to get that state money. And I don't think that any of us want to be the people that said, "No, we're not going to take that million dollars. We're just not going to give you a raise." um on the goals up for election, but

127good luck with that. >> I mean, the question is how much money how much money do we have to pitch in to get the million dollars? And do we sacrifice a 3% raise or do we lose positions? >> It's about a million dollars to do the 3%. >> Okay. So, then how much are they contributing? >> A million. >> So, they're actually going to contribute 100% of this raise. >> Yeah. We'll see where that goes. >> She said at the beginning, there's something incredulous there. >> Yeah, we'll see where that goes. >> I've been digging through the back end of it. One of the things I will say is they're using an average teacher pay of $65,000 to figure out the compensation amount. So they're when they and our average teacher pay right now is

128$67,000 would be $67,000 for next year. So, we're close on those that metric. Um, and then they use a different rate for support positions. We're probably a little bit below that metric for that one because I think they're using 35 or 36. Um, I'd have to dig deeper into the number of positions that they're using for that as well, but that's where it stands. And I saw it on the first template. We talked about it and I said, I don't know. It makes me wonder if there's a mistake in there. And then the governor's template came out and it said the same thing. So I'm like, >> do you think it changes? >> It's the percent is not usually that high. >> But just that number. What's the likelihood that number is going to change

129that they're not covering 99% of it? >> I don't know. That's I've never seen that. >> I can't figure out how they're getting to that number. That's that's the part that worries me. >> I mean, the one year we got a broken template and then it came out some months later, right? And then there's like, oh, >> our bad. Uh, here's the updated numbers top. >> Yeah. >> I think this all shifts dramatically, but the fact that we're starting the budget year 1.5 behind as opposed and that's without that's without reserving any of the positions we talked about is a remarkably scary position to be in. And you know, you you see the rhetoric that comes out when they and I'm not I'm not picking on any one governor over another. I see it every

130year. They come out and they go, we're going to invest this much money in education. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. But then when you start pulling it apart bit by bit. It's well, we're going to give you this money that you do school construction. we're going to do these special grants for lab schools and we're going to provide vouchers for private schools for low-income families. And it's like they're so all of those things are coming off of the top end. And you can kind of w when you see those spreadsheets and the comparisons they take from one pot and then add to another pot. It's just a tradeoff. There's a lot of games played with the lottery money. Apparently, the lottery has um excess revenue that they haven't had before.

131And remember when they sold us the lottery, they said, "We're going to use lottery money to pay for education." And they do, but they take it away from the other side to give you the lottery money. So, there's always games like that where they move things from one funding source to another funding source, but the amount of money ends up being the same. That's my little box for that. Any more questions for governor? >> Now we are on to unfinished business. >> You want me to tee this up a little bit? >> That's fine. >> Sure. So, uh, the learning resource committee has completed its work. The board amended two policies just in general like last year in order to create the committee to address uh the books in question. So they've completed their work.

132They've given some feedback. They've given some suggestions. There's been I've had dialogue with community members about some of the decisions or maybe one decision that has been made by the committee and what avenues are available to have the board reconsider or consider those decisions that have been made. I just so you know the way I have treated that in my communication you have some policies that designate a process and at the end of the process your policy will say this is final it's not good this is not this this policy is not now it does not provide an approval process to anybody other than the complaintant generally speaking my disposition towards this. It it doesn't provide a formal process to form an appeal per se. Anybody can appeal just about anything at any time by

133talking to me about it, principal about it, by running to the board. In this case, because this was a committee that was appointed by the board created by a policy, my suggestion was that folks who want to have the board look at these decisions even contact their individual board members and encourage them to process it however they choose. long way was being to add it to an agenda to ask the agenda to be amended when it's being uh agreed upon or to write to the entire board. I certainly can serve as a facilitator for that communication as well. There's also been uh commentary on board members about the make not the makeup of the committee but the the existence of the is it something that you want to continue you want to keep the policy.

134So all of that happening before the break and communications that I had with the chair about about all of these issues led to basically just putting it on the agenda for the board to discuss. I'll just follow. >> So we're opening up the pool for discussion. I >> I'll kick it off. Um, personal stance, I'd be fine getting rid of the committee and having it all fall. And reasons for that being if we're going to appoint a community of community volunteers that spends their time doing that and the school board one is not involved in the decision making of books being kept or not. But then also the ability for this process to continue even after that committee does their thing and reviews all the books. I don't know why the school board wouldn't just

135do it. Um, and I say that I appointed somebody to this committee, but some of the other actual committee approvals happened prior to me being on this board. I'd find the school board handling that and just move forward. So, I'll throw that out there just food for thought of where I stand. Um, and then correct me if I'm wrong if this needs to go with new business, but I'd also be fine changing the policy for two specific areas. one, should a book be challenged, I want to see that person as a parent or guardian of somebody in the school system, somebody could move into this county tomorrow and challenge a book the day they get here. I don't think that's right. But two, I also believe that whoever challenges that should only challenge a book

136of the school that their child is in. So that way, if your child is in high school, you can't challenge something in elementary school. You're in elementary school, you can't challenge something at high school. and make it very specific um to have skin in the game for for this process to even unfold. Um that's just where my head's at around this. I personally don't see any value tonight. If you want to have at it, I'm probably just going to stay quiet in that conversation of talking about anything that's already been done. It's done. It's in the past. But these are areas, at least from my perspective, that I think we may be able to critique for anything moving forwards. >> Any other discussion? >> I think our committee had um a number of notes as

137it relates to their recommendations and restructuring. I think that's something that I've been ill, hence the mask. So, I didn't get a chance to refresh on those, but I think that we should read and consider that they put in the time to do the work and I think that having those and having a discussion about the changes or modifications. I mean, the other bit, you know, I was mixed on whether or not to have a committee at all. I think that the process it itself remains broken. the notion that some rando can pull 15 books off a list off the internet, not read any of them, and and spit up a bunch of people who are professionals and have other jobs to do to to review the content is honestly kind of laughable. Um, I

138think it's um I think we need to close some of those problems in that um if you're going to challenge a book, maybe you should have read it, honestly. and 15 off the list on the internet's just it's bananas nonsense. It just is. Um and so, you know, but the the counter here is, you know, we can barely get this board together once a month with five of us. How long on earth do we think that we're going to get get all the board members here to read the books? like at least in the committee setting, it's very evident that that the people who um were appointed to the committee and served read and had meaningful dialogue, we struggle with meaningful dialogue, we're sure as heck not going to get five board members to to

139do homework. And so while the committee setting may not be the most preferable, it's certainly getting the job done in terms of having professionals who are qualified to engage in the material and to have meaningful open dialogue about um you know the assets of a book terms of the context in terms of considerations etc. So while maybe the committee system isn't the best system that I would have devised myself, I do think that the externality or the outcome of it then we have a really engaged process but I think that the funnel up front needs to be uh fixed and then we should have discussions about what appeals process should or shouldn't exist. And so I think spending that time um whether we put it on a February or a March but looking at the

140recommendations from the people who put in the work uh because to your point about future proofing like what's what's next? So like if somebody had a an objection to a book that's in our library right now, what's our process? We haven't reappointed anybody. The committee doesn't exist. So uh where to and how? And so I I think we have a a system or structure in place that may not be anybody's ideal point but functions and function quite quite well and meaningfully but um I think we have some learnings that we can loop back and kind of modify. >> Yeah, I think there a few areas of that process we need to look at further. I mean the pill process, the amount of books one person can challenge. I think we have the footwork, but we

141just need to meet and kind of um streamline that for a better process. >> I'll add this about an appeals process, and this kind of goes back to my point of why have a committee if we add an appeals process. If we keep a committee, there's going to be one side of that conversation that probably doesn't like the outcome. I don't think this is ever going to be hopefully never even happens again because quite frankly, I thought it was all a waste of time. Anyway, just putting that out there because everybody wants to lump me in on one side of this conversation anyway. But the ability for somebody to challenge, let's play a hypothetical real quick. Say there's an appeal process of the one book that didn't that got taken off. Who does that appeals

142process go to? And if it comes to us, then what are we going to do? We're going to be tasked with reading the book. We're going to be tasked with having conversation. We're going to be tasked with making a decision. Why not just start there? I don't ever know of a situation that if we change this to put an appeals process in place that it's not going to get appealed assumption but pretty strong assumption I think from my position and if it comes then back to us and you're not going to appeal to the same committee I don't know why we're creating extra work for people who didn't run for office just for that then to be put on our plate now we got to go back and read the book if we're not going

143to read it if a committee's in place because I trust them to do what we appointed them to do. So I I mean and then at what point does it end? Can you appeal an appeal? Can you like I don't know. I just to me this is one of those get back to education know where you're at with what's in your library. And if that means we get a list of every book that comes to the library and we have a designated 72-hour window to say schoolboard admins, these are the new books that come to the library. you got 72 hours, let us know if there's any red flag. Like, I mean, there's got to be a process to know also what's coming into the library. I trust all of our librarians. I think they

144do a great job, but at the same time, like, if we're going to evaluate what's in there, are we evaluating what comes into the library? Like, I I think this could open up just a massive conversation at the same time that frankly is not focused on education. >> Yeah. And I'm I am certainly less worried about the sort of like there's the the funnel what comes in there's the committee work and then there's the outcome right I am less worried about appeals and printed to be fair like I am uh not into book banning or burning y'all don't need to hear me say that again. I don't agree with the decision that the committee made, but the committee made an informed decision based on their work and I appreciate their work for it. I think

145that we can get a lot of the fixes related to committee structure and the way it works if we fix the top end of the funnel and I I think that the rest of it will work itself out. So, I'd like to invest the time in making sure that we have a committee that meets the the structure and the need that we have. And I um I genuinely do believe that we're going to get better outcomes and more engagement from from a committee appointed to do this than to expect these five board members to read books. >> Is there any concern over putting community members in the public light? Going to take a look at deep dive all the recommendations that it's live stream. It's in public like there was what's being asked for the

146recommendations is exactly what we were appointed to do in my opinion. We're public. We're live streamed. We're recorded while live streamed. We're here to discuss. Like if that's something that is the task of this board, then do it. Like that's how I look at it. I mean I I would just struggle if we fix top end but then also give another way for this to continue when it comes to us anyway. I don't know if that would happen but that's kind of where this conversation I think leads. with an appeals process, it's got to go to somebody higher than that group that just did it. I mean, >> right. And I'm saying like I'm fine for going the notion of appeals process on the back end potentially. Like we should talk about the like the

147processes, but I don't think it's also uncommon for even at the board of supervisor level to have subcommittees that do work that's in the public eye because these things happen in in the public space. Uh, and so I don't believe that it's problematic to to have it play out in public as it should. And I think that committee members who uh are not interested in having that amount of visibility uh should elect not to participate and we've had the ability to appoint a member each. If somebody um didn't want that level of scrutiny, then it's probably fine for them not to not to join that committee. Yeah, I thought at first originally said that after a year we was going to revisit who we appointed. So I think we're almost at that time to >>

148Oh, it was January. >> So we're at that time to revisit. >> So I guess the question is Charles, do you have any problems? >> I think your learning resource committee is, you know, um I think it's all right. I think we need a guideline for what's appropriate for certain age groups. That's my opinion. And yeah, where does the appeal go to? I don't know that. >> So I guess the question is from here, where do you all want to go? Obviously, we're in January. Um I don't disagree with me. >> I think we just conven the the committee and trust the staff that's on the committee and the members of the community that's on the on the learning resource committee. So, we have three members. Three members, I'm assuming, want to stick with the

149committee and reappoint people to the committee. Is that is that what I'm hearing? >> Not necessarily reappoint. I guess see if your personal opponent is with it how it's panning out. >> I would like to see in the February meeting the um policies um with the red lines that we changed. I'd like to see the recommendate I like to have and it's our job to to reinform ourselves the recommendations of the committee and then make the modifications to whatever committee structure we have before we reappoint anyone to it. And so that'll give us a chance to do things like figure out what the appropriate max number of books an individual can challenge. And then I'm empathetic towards Mr. 's point about sort of having skin in the game, if you will, meaning that in order

150to challenge a book, maybe you need to be a parent of a student in a given building, etc., etc., although I would argue some nuance there. You know, if you've got a seventh grader who's going into eth, then you are compelled that one of the books there isn't appropriate. Certainly challenging it when they're within one year of the next building doesn't seem really all that problematic. >> Do they have access to it when they're in seventh grade? If it's in an eighth grade library, like physically walk in and get it from that library, >> it wouldn't I mean, honestly, I don't fundamentally understand what the problem with a book is to begin with. So, you'll have to >> itain and I'll end it at that. That the book that's gone doesn't need to be in

151schools, but I don't want to revisit all of that. Everybody knows where I stood, campaigned on it. Everybody Everybody knows where I stand. >> All right. So, >> my concern, and I'm just going to put this out there because this this this conversation, and I agree with y'all from the start, this was political. I I don't have any problem saying that, >> but is that not what every decision related to books is going to be? Because we're not talking about a new textbook. We're not talking about curriculum for students. We are talking about a book that any decision, whether it's the school board or whether it's a committee, is going to be based on our own personal values. And if we appoint people to a committee, I'm just going with it. Aren't we going to

152appoint somebody that has the same values when it comes to something that's political, like a book, instead of me saying, "I might disagree with that book being in there, but let me put somebody on a board who thinks completely different of me. If I don't want to see a book in it, I'm gonna put somebody on this committee that thinks like me that I think stands a good shot not put a book in there." >> I would I would argue that I didn't appoint someone. I mean, absolutely not. I >> I appointed a librarian who I trusted, >> who I believe does this for a living and knows better than I do. >> Truthfully, I only had two people that that asked me if they told me they were interested and I picked what I

153thought was the best one. >> This conversation has nothing to do with education. >> Everything to do with education. >> That's and we we will agree to disagree on that. I you might I will >> that's fine. That's where I will plant my flag is that this conversation has nothing to do with education. >> So what where we're at is we want >> at least three members of the board want to see us come back in February with the current the uh current policy revisions that have been made. Um and then you guys will be prepared to make uh amendments or revisions to the policy that maybe we can adopt going forward or maybe you want to scrap the policy all together. I don't know but you all are prepared to have that discussion in

154February. >> Yes. >> Or three members that agree to that. Okay. >> Um again there's nothing I told someone today I can't remember who it was but there's nothing preventing you from eliminating the policy altogether. revising the policy. Um, you know, whatever the will of the board is. >> Yeah, that's I mean, >> and then we could theoretically, assuming that the committee still stands as of March, then we could whenever we are done with our business related committee, we could then decide whether or not to reappoint based off the previous conversation. Th this this committee that was appointed was appointed because of this issue. But this discussion started many many many years ago with Mr. Winkler um because some books were dropped off at school that it wasn't just a parent that found them inappropriate.

155A bunch of teachers and parents and stuff found these books inappropriate and we didn't Mr. Winkler read it. A couple of us read it and said, "Oh my goodness, how did this get here?" It wasn't in the library. someone dropped dropped them off in mass and they just hand you know their books and just giving them that to the kids without reading them and then they found that that might have been a mistake. So we talk about this committee then to for when that incident happened that someone would read the book before it was distributed. Um obviously it's grown into something much different than uh than it is now. So I guess >> to clarify next month would be policy conversation and a vote based on policy for this committee and whether or not a

156committee exist like we're we're lumping this all in to just say we want to revisit this conversation again next month. >> I I think we need to come next month ready to take action one way or the other. >> That's what I was going to say. If it's going to end next month then I think that's great. But I I think we have spent way too much time talking about books over the last year. >> So I would say >> just all over the place. Not necessarily this board in this room. I just mean books have been very loud >> and and again it started >> I would say >> ago but >> decision one do we have a committee >> if three people don't want to keep the committee then we move on. Decision

157two if we keep the committee is okay what does the policy look like? How do we make it better? How do we take the recommendations from the committee members and um improve that? How do we streamline that process? How do we prevent some of the incidents that you all are talking about? But I think before you get to part two, we got to get past part one. And that's going to be between now and February, whatever. Um, February 12th, between now and February 12th, everybody needs to come ready to decide whether they want to keep the committee or not. And I don't disagree. It is there are lots of committees, like you said, I'm on the a enforcer committee, um, which meets every now and then. Technically, it's a public public meeting that nobody ever

158attends because it's not very interesting. But, um, you know, I this this was just this issue, like you said, was very political and obviously people wanted to be a part of it. Um, and that complicates things. It went from people that wanted to help and wanted to serve to people that s suddenly were worried about what they said being taken out of context and being videotaped and stuff like that. So I and that's what we signed up for. >> Um so I I see both sides of it. >> My thing is we're sitting here talking about how do we fund positions, how do we keep staff, how do we figure out insurance and s like that's what we need to be focused on right now. We don't need to be continuing this conversation like if

159it ends in February, great because then we can get back to the stuff that really drives our school system and and policy and like get back to education. like we don't need to be talking about books that are >> so also I guess if we also Dr. send the original policy we can have that as well in case we scrap everything go back to where >> I would bring you that I think the the thing I would just throw out for you to just consider moving forward comment on the >> now we had a process in place it was in policy >> the you created a committee specifically This was all part of the public rhetoric specifically because the issue became so public and so uh contentious the specific staff members involved librarian teacher were

160trying to create a buffer for those individuals to not necessarily be in that timeline alone. One of the things you could do would be to just simply revert back to what you had before you created. >> Okay. >> But yes, >> policy policies. >> So everybody knows their options for February. Come prepared to make a decision in February. All right. Any more discussion on that? All right. We're on to new business. Is there any new business? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to action item. Action item 13A is approval of the VSBA policy updates presented in December. And I don't know, everybody has them on paper on their iPad, but they're here um in the very back of your packet. >> No changes to these. We did pull a new request uh sorry KJ.

161>> Got it. >> So >> all right. I am uh willing to entertain a motion on 13A. I move that we approve the VSBA policy updates presented in December. >> I'll second it. >> All right, we have a motion and a second to approve the VSBA policy updates. Any discussion? Hearing none. Those approve those in favor of approving the VSBA policy updates, please say I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. They are approved. All right, moving on to the January seminar date. Um, in order to discuss it, we need a motion. So, I move that we set a January um seminar date to be revised with a place. Yeah. Is that good enough? >> Yeah. I have to imagine that like >> Yeah, >> I have a motion to >> hold a seminar >> hold

162a January seminar date. >> Um, do I have a second? >> A second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second to >> hold a January seminar date. Um, and we can now have some discussion on that. I'm looking at my calendar as we speak. Today is the 8th. There's a there's a presentation scheduled for early in February. >> The key for this is to to have this fall at a time when we can make necessary prior to that. >> So you're talking about the fifth >> late enough that we have enough information. >> So that that meeting is in the fifth, correct? be no earlier than the second week of January. Maybe third or fourth will be if it's too late that it bust right up against that February 5th given child.

163>> So maybe the 22nd week of the 22nd or week of the 29th. Well, the 29th you said be too close. >> Well, not necessarily. I I think the week the 22nd would probably be ideal or >> so >> maybe 27 if >> you want to do like a Mon I don't know what days of the week for people I'm not on shift schedule but like Monday the 27th would be the first day of the last week in January and provide a week and a half of buffer before the 5th. Is it is that an idea? I can do the 27th. >> That's a morning. >> Yeah, it would be 9 to noon. >> Usually we do them on Wednesdays. We have a prep meeting on the 29th and so I thought going back a

164couple days might benefit everybody. >> I can do 27. >> Yeah. >> You say 27th? Yes, sir. >> Yes. >> I won't be available 27. >> Uh 28 28. What about the 20th? [Music] >> Uh 21. >> I can't do the 21st, but I can do the 22nd or the 24th. >> 24 is a Friday. >> 24. >> What's that? >> 24. >> Yeah. >> 24. 24. 24. 24. >> Yep. >> Got it. 12, right? >> What's that? >> Then could I have a do you mind amend my motion? >> Yes, sir. Go ahead. >> to be that we hold a uh seminar on January the 24th from 9 to noon here in this uh in this room. >> All right, >> I'll second. We have a January 24th from 9:00 am to noon school

165board budget work session/seminar. All those in favor please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. >> All right we are on to our second round of public comments. Um, any Fanna County citizen or employee of Fanta County Public School System is welcome to speak and the expectations are that you address the board, not individual members, that you provide your name and voting district, that you do not exceed three minutes, and that you are respectful. We will not interact with you, of course, during public comment, but you're welcome to ask us questions afterwards. Anyone wishing to speak, please come forward. Your time is on the television. Mr. Reed literally just said, "Let's get back to focusing on education and not worry about books." Do you realize how absurd that sounds? I'm going to

166let that sink in for a minute. Um, and you also said, Dr. threats that the people can write their representative to complain about the U issues with the book committee. I've tried that. I can't I have literally emailed my representative numerous times. Out of probably at least six or eight times that I have emailed my representative, I have gotten one reply back. And I will quote this reply as I really don't care for emails. That is from my friend representative, Mr. Ritting House. How are we supposed to communicate with our representatives when they do not email us back? The most emails I get back are from Mr. Reid, who is for you. So, how are we supposed to communicate with you when you don't email us back? This is our this is our issue. So,

167at least my issue, our phone. So, thank you very much. >> All right. Anyone else wishing to speak? >> All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to school board member comments. Mr. Kelly, >> uh, new year said to get our students in the building when when weather cooperates and, uh, happy to roll my sleeves back up and get back in my pickings. Obviously, we're we're running head first into a difficult budget year. got a lot of priorities to work out and got a lot of public discourse to be had. Um, obviously, you know, there are bits and pieces that are contentious this evening and they're supposed to be and I will continue to um try to grapple with these things because I do fundamentally believe that what's on our shelves in a given moment is

168education and is relevant to what's going on in our buildings and to our students and to the voices and the narratives that they have access to. I um fundamentally believe in using the dollars that we have available when we have them to meet our students needs even if down the road it's it's less fun for everybody there's certainly ways we can improve process but um you know ultimately if if our north star is focus on student outcomes then I fundamentally believe that um we'll find the right process and I look forward to working with this board this year to make sure that we can continue to push forward that we can continue to have the staff and the resources and the literature and the books in place that that help our students flourish because ultimately

169education is all encompassing and we're responsible for our students and what comes next when they leave our buildings. And so um I am optimistic about 2025 and uh I'm confident I will see you a great number of times throughout this budget year. So, uh, thanks to those who attended and and presented and thanks to those watching at home. We could get along season and a long school year ahead. Thank you, >> Mr. Written House. >> Yes, I want to thank Miss Grasser and Miss Sorz for their information they presented to us tonight and know y'all put a lot of work in it. We have a lot to think about and deal with um in the next month or so. So, um, Mr. Jocelyn is right. I don't email back to people. I if I email

170everybody, I don't have time to do all that. Um I work, you know, I still work for a living and I don't look at my computer 24/7. Um but you're right. I I should respond more than I do. Same thing that Robert from Union. Um I don't speak enough. Um I listen a lot, but I don't speak, you know, just just not the way I've been. I've been shy most of my life and unusual for me to be up here on this board speaking, but that's all. Thank you, >> Mr. Ke. >> Yes, I'm also excited about the scheme year. Thanks, Miss Sor, Miss Grass for the information. Um, just one quick comment. Um, kids been out. I've seen a lot of kids in the community doing good work, going around shoveling people driveways and

171doing all that stuff. So that's the reason why I'm on this board is the proud work that we can um have in our community. It's awesome seeing kids out there helping their neighbors out. >> Mr. Reed, >> uh thank you to everybody coming out tonight, Miss Grasser, Miss Sorz, Miss Hollow. I really appreciate you guys sharing all your information. I know it's not quick to put together, um but it does help us a lot with what you guys do. So, thank you very much. Um, looking forward to being in the schools and having a good year. >> All right, I will uh accept a motion to adjourn. Excuse me. >> I'll make a motion to adjourn. >> I'll second. >> All right, have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting. Any discussion? All

172those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Chair votes I. We are ajouring. Please, before you leave, get with Brandy, excuse me, Miss Criter, and sign that document.